


In the Colors of a Thousand Sunsets

by paxnirvana



Category: Marvel Ultimates
Genre: Alien Sex, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-30
Updated: 2012-05-30
Packaged: 2017-11-06 07:15:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/416178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paxnirvana/pseuds/paxnirvana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the whole Gah Lak Tus event, things get a little boring for Carol Danvers, Air Force Major, who is still tasked with following her charge, Dr. Philip Lawson -- really the Kree alien Mahr Vehl  -- everywhere.  At least it's boring until Tony Stark invites Dr. Lawson to a party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Colors of a Thousand Sunsets

**Author's Note:**

> NON-TAG WARNINGS: Sex with an alien pretending to be a human. Alcohol abuse by Ultimate Tony Stark. References to potential genocide. Sex under the influence. The Ultimate Marvel universe.
> 
> Note: Ultimate Carol Danvers is without powers. 
> 
> And who is Philip Lawson (Mahr Vehl), you ask? Why he's the Ultimate Marvel version of Captain Marvel -- who is now a very non-human alien "surgically" disguised as a human. ( He looks like a GQ photo shoot as a human; a little like an anglerfish when not. )
> 
> Mahr Vehl was first introduced in the "Ultimate Secret" section of the Ultimate Galactus Trilogy. He also has one of the sweetest costume-makeovers in all of Ultimate Marvel. 
> 
> \-------------------------------------------------------

Air Force Major Carol Danvers was fairly certain attending high-society parties thrown by Tony Stark wasn’t part of her job description. But then, what tasks _could_ be considered standard for an alien defector’s babysitter, she thought bitterly.  Technically her job was ‘security escort’ but that was something of a joke these days.  Pluskommander Geherenis HalaSon Mahr Vehl, military trained super-powered ichthyoid alien, didn’t _really_ need protection. No, babysitter fit the bill far better.

It had become painfully obvious to her at several points during the Gah Lak Tus crisis that he was just playing along at the prisoner gig to make the puny hu-mans feel better. That flimsy-looking bio-cybernetic battle suit of his eclipsed Stark’s Iron Man in both technology and firepower and took only seconds – rather than a quarter hour and an entire crew of 20 – to deploy.

The only real way to keep him from using the suit was to keep him tied up and his fingers away from that ‘watch’ of his. Or to chop off the arm it was imbedded in. She’d proposed that once after Lawson had been particularly irritating, but Fury had vetoed the idea firmly.

Apparently the General liked having a pet alien with superior tech and galactic savvy on call. No matter how annoying the flippant, smug, disgustingly friendly bastard could be.

So, Fury had insisted that it was still her job to keep him under guard even now that the immediate danger to Earth had passed. Which was getting harder and harder to do since he’d recovered from the spinal injury he received during the defense of the Triskelon from human doomsday cultists and had finally been able to shed his Kree battle suit again. He’d resumed his human appearance – and his human life – with Fury’s approval.  Which made her job ‘interesting’ again anyway. Even if following a physicist around to think-tanks, conferences and the Baxter Building instead of being involved in the ongoing world-wide recovery wasn’t her real idea of interesting.

She’d secured an actual promotion out of the whole mess at least. And a pay raise. And she’d held on to her indigo-level SHIELD clearance, even if Fury was being cagey again about certain pertinent parts of SHEILD’s data.  After the virtually wide-open access the pending end-of-the-world had engendered in the enigmatic Director of SHIELD, he’d reverted to his former closed-mouth locked-down ways. Just when she’d started to get into the really interesting stuff too – such as the ‘known extraterrestrial resident’ lists and the genetic modification tracking data. The Kree Pluskommander, though, had been the first alien _willing_ to work with SHIELD against his own kind and so Fury treated him far better than he treated many others.   

Of course, babysitting the alien defector held far better prospects for her career now that she could actually expect to have one again –  since the Richards boy and Xavier had sent the sentience-devouring entity Gah Lak Tus fleeing the solar system in a panicked huff, saving humanity from obliteration. Everything was finally starting to get back to normal again. If there was anything _normal_ about life on Earth any longer. Not with alien invasions happening every few years and super-powered people practically crawling out of the woodwork daily.

As Dr. Philip Lawson, her charge had been passing for human for over seven years already and had an identity as a respected physicist that SHIELD wanted preserved for the general scientific community. Fury had let him out of prison garb for good only after he’d taken that one in the spine for SHIELD HQ. That had somehow meant more to Fury than blowing up his own ride home had.

World-wide riots and alien invasions notwithstanding SHIELD really didn’t want too many other Earth governments knowing that he was Kree. So he had been firmly re-established as Dr. Philip Lawson again, which meant that in public she couldn’t just whip out her sidearm and press it to his fishy forehead every time he pissed her off. It was also why she was working hard to train herself to think of him as Lawson only instead of Mahr Vehl; less chance of slipping up and calling him the wrong name in front of the wrong people.

“I’m sure Tony wouldn’t have minded if you had decided to dress a little less… formally, Major Danvers,” Lawson murmured to her as they rode the private elevator up to Tony Stark’s penthouse. The grin on his too-deliberately-handsome face looked warm and amused and human but she knew was anything but as she just glared at him without answering.

She was wearing her Air Force dress uniform; Stark’s kind of party not being nearly formal enough for full mess dress.

Once SHIELD had restored his access to his own bank accounts, Lawson had shed the orange jumpsuit look as if it had scalded him. She’d been shocked to learn his personal net worth; the alien bastard wasn’t anywhere in Stark’s class of course, but he wasn’t going to be eating Top Ramen the last week of every month or swearing at his super to fix the leak under the kitchen sink any time ever either. Being an alien infiltrator obviously paid well.

That meant that the sleek dark blue suit Lawson was wearing was probably by a name designer of some kind. Though hell if she knew one clothes designer from another, she could tell it had to be designer or tailored or something more than off-the-rack simply by the way it fit him so perfectly – and really she’d just noticed in passing how nicely it showed off the width of his shoulders in contrast to the slimness of his hips. There was a pale green linen shirt and muted green silk tie with it too that all together probably cost more than her monthly pay. Even after the raise in grade to Major. His thick black hair was recently trimmed too. Short and close on his neck and around the ears, and just long enough for fingers to get a grip in around the back and the top. And she wasn’t thinking that. No she wasn’t.

His green eyes sparkled at her from over lowered Oakley Batwolf sunglasses – that she was seriously tempted to confiscate for her own use if only she could justify it somehow – almost as if he’d caught her thoughts straying unprofessionally.

But Kree didn’t have a natural capacity for telepathy. Either Xavier or Grey had mentioned that somewhere along the line she was fairly sure. She kept her thoughts off his nice, tight ass – that she’d seen bare several times already, purely in a duty capacity – just in case.

The elevator came to a smooth stop and the doors opened onto a wide, elegant foyer. The hum of voices and the throb of dance music could immediately be heard coming from somewhere beyond a set of double doors made of brushed steel integrated with abstract panels of stained glass, the combination somehow making the entryway to Tony Stark’s penthouse suite look both reverent and cold. A young man in an understated uniform was standing beside the doors and already nodding to them.  She spotted the earpiece; he was hooked into Stark’s security even though a live doorman was an affectation by Stark. They’d already been thoroughly scanned, cleared and approved by the automated systems in the elevator on the way up.

Lawson’s hand drifted toward the small of her back as they crossed the smooth tile floor, hovering close to where her M9 was holstered beneath her coat, but not touching. He well knew where she kept her weapon. 

“Not that I don’t appreciate the women’s Air Force dress uniform – particularly that skirt – because I very much do,” he continued. And that was unmistakably a leer he was giving her now. She bit back a sigh of annoyance with difficulty. He’d been spending far too much time around Tony Stark these days, she though furiously, then, in the interests of fairness, had to amend the thought. No. He’d always flirted with her. Even when she hadn’t known he was actually an alien fish-man instead of just a flaky civilian scientist she hadn’t flirted back. It was unprofessional.

“Regulations require dress uniform when on duty, as you well know, Lawson,” she snapped back at him as he put his hand at her elbow instead and guided her in through the doors to Tony Stark’s penthouse suite currently being held open by the doorman. He did human manners just as if he really were a nicely brought up boy instead of a lying alien fish. She barely kept herself from elbowing him in the gut and didn’t shake his hand off either, though she did shoot him a warning glare. His knowing grin didn’t waver at all.

“And you’re always on duty, aren’t you, Carol?” Lawson said just as Tony Stark himself swanned up to them in a silk robe over an open shirt – not formal at all – with a slopping tumbler in one hand and a blinding smile on his alcohol-flushed face.

“Mahr Vehl! Here you are!” Instead of offering either of them a hand to shake, Stark somehow oiled his way into wrapping his free arm around her shoulders. He reeked of bourbon and a musky perfume touched with a trace of gun oil. The Black Widow was his fiancé, Carol remembered belatedly and with a hint of alarm. And she had no idea if the Russian was territorial or not. She shrugged his arm off and stepped past him smoothly anyway. 

Stark just smiled and let his hooded gaze run appreciatively from her ankles up to her face, not offended by the speed of her brush off at all. “And you brought the delicious and prickly Major Danvers with you too, I see.” That cheerful acceptance of a no was the one thing that made his smarm bearable, actually, or she probably would have broken a few of Stark’s fingers long ago.

“You know how it is with Fury; where I go, she goes.” Lawson smiled wide at the other man as he swept off his sunglasses and tucked them into an inner pocket of his suit coat. “Hi Tony. Thanks for the invite. Sorry we’re late.”

“Are you? Oh well, you’re always welcome here with your delightful alien brain whenever, my boy,” Stark said carelessly before taking a deep pull on his drink, his gaze still on her legs, she noticed. “We aren’t nearly done with that fascinating discussion of underspace transit theory. But I’m afraid I’m far too drunk now to pick your brain properly tonight, Mahr Vehl, and I’m leaving for Baikonur in a day and it’ll be weeks before I’ll be back from watching those dreary test launches I promised my darling Natasha I’d monitor for her so I’m afraid you’ll both just have to stay over tonight, my dears. I insist. Jarvis will find you a spot.” Then he was gone again in a swirl of silk robe and a spatter of bourbon from his carelessly swung glass. A hovering server was already moving forward to clean up the spill from the polished wood floor. Lawson guided her around the woman with that slick hand on her elbow again, drawing them both deeper into the crowded penthouse.

“Stay over?” she said, glaring at him even though she knew it was Stark’s doing.

“Oops,” Lawson said with a careless shrug as he looked around the party curiously. She abandoned glaring at him to check the room out for herself. It didn’t take long to discover that the attendees were a mix of the young and idle and beautiful and the old and powerful and perverse. Typical Washington DC with a mix of New York ennui for spice. Wait… was that _Captain America_ over there frowning at some scantily-clad starlet by the windows?  Odd. She thought he avoided these events unless Fury specifically ordered him to attend. “You know Tony. Mr. Spontaneous.”

“I’ll have to clear it,” she said stiffly even as he swept two drinks off a passing waiter’s tray and held one out to her. The beverage was a light orange color and garnished with curls of both lemon and lime peel, the glass rimmed with white crystals that could have been either sugar or salt. She eyed it suspiciously, but his eyes gleamed with amused challenge over the rim of his as he sniffed at his own before taking a cautious sip.

“You know Tony’s place is cleared; he’s an Ultimate,” he said after swallowing, his expression gone thoughtful. With a frown, she finally took the other glass he was still holding toward her. “But hey, go ahead and bug Fury late on a Friday night if you feel you must, Major.”

Disgruntled, – mostly because she knew he was right – she subsided and, as she glanced around the room again,  took a sip of her own drink. It was light and tart and strong. Tropical, but not overpoweringly so. The dusting on the rim was just simple sugar. She hoped. There was no telling what human drugs would do to the alien if Stark was mixing coke into his drink garnishes. Lawson had been understandably reluctant to let the SHIELD scientists test things on him ‘just because’. And so far Fury was respecting that. As long as Lawson kept cooperating, anyway.

She still didn’t completely understand how his ‘surgical disguise’ worked. He looked, sounded and acted utterly human. He even ate their food and drank their liquids with seemingly no problems. He had a digestive system and biological functions that were scarily close to human, the doctors he had allowed to examine him had reported. He claimed he was virtually human like this. Even though his origin clearly was of an alien species. Only his own fancy implanted bio-cybernetic battle suit could bring him out of the disguise.

That suit was also how the alien ship commander had managed to revert him back to his original form. She’d seen the recordings of the incident from Stark’s Iron Man. She glanced at him now as he looked around the party, sipping from his drink again as he did so, looking casual and male and very very human. And nothing like the attenuated, big-eyed, far too toothy _thing_ she’d seen on the videos.

Mahr Vehl had claimed the disguise override had only worked then due to a combination of the bio-organic aura of the ship itself in combination with Yahn Rgg’s command codes sent through the generalized field effect of the Kree under-space drive. It wasn’t likely anyone else other than Mahr Vehl himself could now revert him to his original form. And, he’d explained patiently under interrogation later, since he’d become fond of Earth and was defecting and planning to live out his life among humans, he wasn’t likely to do that on his own now, was he? Plus it hurt like hell and doing it away from a ship-field, apparently, made the pain ten times worse. Which was probably true, because when he’d changed back to human as soon as the voidkruiser exploded the process had rendered him unconscious for half an hour or so when the initial transition on the Kree vessel hadn’t incapacitated him all that badly. They had full video of the rather disgusting and painful-looking process from the shuttle cabin recorder as corroboration. And video of Sue Storm giving him a full physical exam while unconscious afterwards too. The opportunistic little bitch.

So he was actually human-like now. For good. Unless the Kree returned and forced him back to his home planet, anyway.

He wasn’t just spontaneously going to change back into a fish-alien. No matter what she – _they_ , god damn it – put him through. He was firmly fixed in those male-model pro-athlete good looks of his. Not that she’d noticed how he looked. Much.

She shook her head at her wandering thoughts and glanced determinedly around the vast if  currently crowded space of Stark’s penthouse instead. Hoping for a distraction. She’d drifted across the room as Lawson did, following in his wake automatically as he smiled and greeted and shook hands with a few people, avoided others without creating offense, and generally worked the room like a pro. He sipped at his drink and talked and laughed just like everyone else. Still playing the part of smart, urbane human scientist with ease. While she hung close to him. Noting who he interacted with. Trailing him around. Being introduced as his liaison. Because this was her duty.

At least it meant she didn’t have to do too much mingling of her own.

God she hated parties like this. Not quite official, but just close enough, with a scattering of attendees important enough to keep her nerves on edge. Just from a casual look over the crowd, she’d recognized a couple senators, a few generals, an admiral or two and various other members of government equally vital to the power structure. Career-changing impressions could be made at things like these – even with all the hands already drifting to inappropriate places on people who were definitely not some of those people’s spouses or official partners.

There was dancing going on in what she knew was normally Stark’s dining room – this wasn’t the first time she’d come here with Lawson. The space had been cleared of furniture for the evening and the polished ebony floor was nearly obscured by swaying, gyrating bodies. She paused to watch, keeping one ear kept cocked toward Lawson to keep track of him. But he had fallen into a conversation with a couple of older men who she guessed were fellow scientists just from their painfully dull tweed coats. She briefly debated going into the other room and finding a partner for a set, even in her dress blues, but the music was a little too blatantly dance-club for her taste; annoyingly repetitive and vapid. She let her gaze skip around the people in the room instead as she nursed her drink, wryly noting the growing lack of clothing on the younger set, both male and female alike.

A burst of loud laughter drew her gaze toward the wide bank of windows where Stark himself was holding court. They’d arrived very late to the party – Lawson’s fault, of course – but trust the billionaire to personally speed up the evening’s progression toward debauchery. It was barely midnight. How had he managed to get two naked girls draped over him already? Did the Widow know? Carol wondered idly, glancing around for the woman’s red head and not finding it in the crowd. But it wasn’t as if it was some kind of secret that Stark was a slut. Hell, did the woman even _care_ if her fiancé screwed around? Captain America apparently did though. He was barking something hostile at Stark who just grinned back at him, eyes glittering and teeth flashing as his hands wandered blatantly over the smug-looking girls tucked beneath his arms.

“Are you going to finish that?” Lawson asked by her shoulder, yanking her attention away from what was probably going to turn into some kind of angry scene very soon if Rogers’ expression was anything to go by.  “What?” she said crossly, frowning at him, mildly annoyed by the distraction. This enforced evening out would so be worth it if she got to see Rogers punch Stark. Lawson nodded toward her drink, eyeing it covetously.

“Find a waiter,” she snapped, cradling the glass closer. It wasn’t her preferred style of booze, granted, but it wasn’t that bad. Plus, he wanted it. Petty? Her? _Never_.

“They all have blue ones now. I liked the orange kind better,” he said, waving a careless hand toward the rest of the room, where she could see the circling waiters were indeed carrying trays of  blue-colored drinks now. He sidled a little closer to her. His eyes were always a rather intense green, but they were now faintly glowing too, she realized with a touch of alarm. Which usually only happened when he was suited up. “Share?” he said, and for some reason he’d lowered his voice to a husky murmur that could only barely be heard above the throbbing music.

“What’s going on?” she demanded, frowning at him even as he slipped his hand over hers, curving it around her hold on the glass before raising both slowly toward his mouth.

He was touching her skin. Coat. Sleeve. Those she could handle him touching. But skin to skin. She could have stopped him. Could have yanked her hand away. Spilled everywhere. Made a scene. Drawn attention to them; to him and his glowing eyes. But she didn’t. Instead – for some strange, unknown, _stupid_ reason – she nearly held her breath as his lips moved closer to her hand.

The feel of his bare skin against hers was electric. Focusing her attention on the contact to the exclusion everything else. It was just his hand but… A shiver ran through her and for a moment all she could do was stare as he parted his lips, turned the glass, and deliberately sipped from the blank part of the rim where her mouth had already cleared away most of the crust of sugar. His eyelids lowered, veiling his glowing gaze only slightly as it caught hers. He drained the last of her drink from the glass slowly, his throat working smoothly above his tie as he swallowed.

A stab of heat raced through her from throat to groin. And all she could wonder for one stupid, reckless moment, was if sugar would taste the same on his lips as it did on her own.

“Back off,” she hissed, drawing away slightly. Too late. Too little. “Are you drunk already? _Can_ you get drunk?” His lips curved in a small smile, but he didn’t release her hand.

“Of course I can. And no, not from just one drink. I just liked this kind and wanted another taste. I like you too, Carol—” Then he lifted the hand he still held around the glass and brushed his lips over her trapped fingers, leaving her no doubt at all about the innuendo.

She wanted to yank her hand away. Scrub the heat of his skin, of his lips off against her skirt. But his eyes were definitely glowing. She could see a pale reflection of green on the skin of his cheeks below those fanned lashes. Alarmed, she caught his shoulder with her free hand and leaned closer to try to catch sight of his pupils. Were they blown? _Was_ there cocaine on the rims of these? _She_ felt no different though. And she’d had the exact same kind of drink. Could there have been something in it that had affected only him? The alien?

Right now, for whatever reason, his eyes were glowing and he was nibbling on her hand. She had to get him out of view. Now. Into private. Find out what was wrong with him and fix it before he blew his cover completely. The last thing she needed was a security incident at Stark’s.

After a moment’s quick search of the crowd milling around them, she caught a waiter’s eye. Nodded him over.

“My companion is feeling a little… unwell. Is there somewhere quiet I can take him?” she asked, her voice as level as she could make it with Lawson breathing softly on her hand. The young man’s gaze flickered between them for an instant, – but he worked for Tony Stark and there probably wasn’t much that could break that trained blankness –, before he nodded.

“Of course, ma’am, follow me. Do you believe medical assistance may be required?”

“No, that won’t be necessary. Just a little quiet will do, I think.”

Lawson followed her without protest as she tugged him along. For once. Which tripped more of her inner alarms too. He was rarely so meekly compliant. The waiter led the two of them down a long hallway that angled away from the main part of the suite. Stark had the entire top five floors of the building as his own private domain, Carol knew, but the waiter wasn’t leading them to a stairwell. He paused at a door near the end of the hall and swiped a card over the handle of the door. It unlocked and the door swung open onto a dimly lit lounge. “I’ll mark this room as in use, ma’am, so you won’t be disturbed. However if you decide you need assistance, just press #7 on the data panel beside the door and someone will be with you promptly.”

She nodded and led Lawson the rest of the way into the room as the waiter nodded in return before closing the door behind them. The lock engaged with a subtle click granting them privacy.

She looked around quickly. It was actually some kind of media room. With low, comfortable-looking couches and small tables arranged facing a ridiculously large flat-screen that covered the far wall. There were no windows to alleviate the darkness, only a line of dim strip-lighting near knee level around the walls.  By that faint illumination, it became even more obvious that his eyes were glowing. Not brightly, just distinctly. Like the bioluminescence of  a deep-sea fish. Her skin crawled for a moment. _Alien_. Yet not. Because the face around those eyes was darkly handsome. And very human. Maybe _too_ human.

“What did you take?” she demanded, gripping his upper arms and looking into his face searchingly.

“Take?” he repeated, his tone low, faintly puzzled. The glow of his eyes dimmed slightly as his lids lowered over them.  He slid a hand up her side, beneath her coat, and she had to fight not to twist away. Because this could be serious. If someone had poisoned him somehow… She made herself step closer, cupped his cheek with her right hand, put a thumb under his chin and tried to tip his head back in order to see his eyes better. He smiled and put his other hand at her waist too but didn’t oblige, ducking his head lower, closer to hers instead.

“Did someone give you something? You’re… not acting right.” She made a noise of annoyance in her throat as his forehead touched hers. Damn uncooperative man.

“I had the same drink you did, Carol. You’re fine, I’m fine,” he murmured, moving smoothly against her, his arm sliding around her upper back, palm flattening between her shoulder blades, the other lying still against her waist. He was warm. His body firm. And oh god she’d seen that body naked plenty of times before and there was nothing wrong with it at all except… Glowing eyes. Far more hands-y than usual. Smiling at her sleepily instead of baiting her. Something was _definitely_ affecting him.

“No, you’re not fine, Mahr Vehl,” she snapped. “Your eyes are glowing.”

“Are they? Cool.” His smile widened. He leaned closer, close enough she could feel his breath warm against her cheek. “And hey, you _do_ know how to say my name right. I’m impressed.” He rubbed the end of his nose across the skin in front of her ear. She could hear him breathe in slowly through his nose. “Mm.  You smell really good, you know, for a mammal girl.”

“How flattering,” she said, her voice shakier than she wanted it to be, her pulse thumping heavy in her throat suddenly. She swallowed, trying to  firm it up, to calm her racing pulse down. But he was too close to her. Way too close for a fish-alien-man-thing. Yet she didn’t push away from him. Why wasn’t she pushing him back? She ran her free hand up his arm. Slid her fingers into the short, soft hair on the back of his neck. The problem was he looked _so human_. Even though she knew better. And his arms felt very good around her, his thighs just brushing against hers, like this. It had been so long since she’d been with anyone. Her life had been work and work alone for far too long and _he_ was that work but… distance. She needed it.

“Dr. Lawson, are you coming on to me?” She put as much bite as she could manage into the words.

“Pretty much, yeah. Did you just notice?” he said, a low chuckle following the words, his hands sliding up her back to cup her shoulders and draw her solidly against his chest. Her own hands were spread flat over his back now, one still up high, the other drifting down dangerously low, and seriously, the smooth line of his spine – no matter how he’d come by it – was almost criminally delicious. Especially the tight rise to the top of his ass just below his belt and oh god…

“Not a good idea,” she managed to say somehow as he brushed his lips lightly down the line of her neck to the collar of her coat before slipping them back just behind her ear. Then he opened his mouth and sucked gently at the skin there. She shuddered and closed her eyes. Clenched her fingers around his belt, into his coat. Oh god how did he know to do that? How did he know that was one of her hotspots?

She should stop this, Carol thought, her mind going hazier with every quickening beat of her heart. She really should. But she couldn’t drag her own hands away from the firm muscle of his back, clearly felt even through the fine fabric of his suit coat.

“Do you know what the hardest thing to get used to about being one of you was?” he said against her throat. She made a low sound of protest – she really  didn’t want to think about his alienness right now –, as her hands moved over him, her head tipped to the side to let him mouth more easily at her skin. He licked her once. Lightly. Blew on the damp place, the slight chill sending a shiver through her, a stabbing sensation following it down through her whole body to her groin.

“What?” she asked, the word dragged from her reluctantly.

“Having a tongue,” he said just as he used his on the pulse thundering under her jaw again. Slow and soft. She groaned. Then his lips moved against her skin and she thought he was smiling. “But I quite enjoy it now. Christ, Carol, the way you _taste_ …”

She rocked her hips against his, spreading her legs over his thigh as best she could in the narrow skirt of her uniform, until his hand drifted down and suddenly it was no longer an impediment. There was the slow slide of fabric along her nylons, the heat of his thigh settling firmly between her own and she rocked herself against him more directly now, moaning softly, her eyes closed.

There was no hesitation in his touch, she realized suddenly. No unfamiliarity. No fumbling.

 “You’ve done this before,” she said, a hint of accusation audible even to her in her tone. Not jealousy though. No. It was… annoyance. For the security risk. Right.

“Not with you,” he murmured against her skin. So slick and polished. Too slick. But damn his hands felt good. His mouth. His body against hers. And oh what the hell. She stroked her hands over his back, seeking muscle, line, the dips and slopes of him. So hard and sleek.

But the part of her mind controlling her mouth just wouldn’t relax. While the rest of it was savoring the brush of his fingers along her thigh, the shift of his lips against her throat, the way the heat was gathering down low in her groin, in her breasts. “I want names. F-for background checks…”

“Not happening.”

“I can make this be not happening too, you know,” she threatened, but her voice was thin, nearly breathless, lacking force, and he just laughed softly, his mouth shifting up toward hers at last, his hooded gaze lifting to meet hers.

“Can you?” he said, his mouth hovering over hers. But not touching. Just maddeningly close.

“Oh hell no,” she said, surging into him. His mouth opened under the assault of hers, his tongue retreating, teasing her into chasing it. She tasted him eagerly, sliding her hand back up to cup his neck and hold him in place. No sugar left on his lips, but a faint tropical remainder on his tongue left from the drink they’d both shared.

She groaned into his mouth. Pressed closer until her aching, swelling breasts had flattened against his chest. His hands flexed on her waist, her thigh, in response.

He pulled free after a good long time, panting slightly. His eyes were hooded. His body shuddering slightly in her grip.

“You’re the first who knows the real me, Carol,” he said, and she released his shoulder to reach up and grab his head with both hands and pull it back to hers again, frantic, her mouth savaging his, her tongue digging deep into his mouth, and finding nothing but heat and slick and answering need.

And she really didn’t want to think too closely about what any of this meant. That she wanted this man who wasn’t really a man. He was an alien. _Completely_ alien in his natural form. But not now. There was no real basis for any of this… intense need… in her experience. No context she could put any of it into that could make it normal again. She just knew she wanted him. Had wanted him for a long time. Even before, back when he’d been just an annoying civilian contractor and not her whole career focus, she’d wanted to climb on him and take a ride, though professionalism had won out. But now that she knew how he tasted, how he felt in her arms… what he really was...

God help her, now she wanted him even more.

She tore her mouth from his with effort. Pressed her forehead to his, panting heavily as she stared into his eyes. He smelled like a man, she noticed suddenly. Warm flesh. Subtle, earthy cologne. The slight musk of sweat. Nothing alien about him at all. Except the eyes.

“How good at this are you?” she demanded, not annoyed at all to see that familiar delighted, mischievous smile cross his face.

“Pretty good,” he admitted. His voice was faintly breathless too, she was gratified to hear.

“Then put me up against that wall and prove it, alien boy,” she ordered, flexing her fingers in his hair and rolling her hips up against the blatant hardness in his slacks.

“Yes ma’am,” he said, glowing eyes gleaming, lips curved in a pleased grin. “Can I please take your clothes off first? Because I very much want to see you naked.”

The raw punch of heat that shot through her at his words shocked her. Somehow she managed to give him a level stare, keep her voice steady. “Get on it then.”

The kiss he gave her then was slow and deep but still edged with urgency. She let her eyes close. Her body surge closer. Losing herself in the play of lip and tongue. Slick warmth. Until he sank to his knees in front of her, his mouth pulling away from hers only when it was inevitable.

Her hands went to his shoulders, gripped and flexed there as his hands circled her ankles. Slid her feet out of her low, sensible Air Force-approved pumps one after the other. Fingers stroked from the heel to arch of each foot, pressing lightly, but not so light as to tickle, warm and firm, before he set each foot back on the ground. She shuddered, feeling shockwaves of sensation roll up each leg in response. Her hips rolled forward involuntarily. The throbbing between her legs grew deeper. And she felt the slipping sense of wetness building inside her. Wetter than she’d been in ages. Already. Just from a few kisses and him taking her shoes off.

Okay. Maybe she’d wasted time wondering about him while he was out catting it up. She bit at her lower lip. Stared down at his bent head accusingly.

“Just pretty good, huh?” she muttered, sliding one hand to the back of his neck. Cupping it. Digging her short, practical nails into the skin lightly. He made a low sound in his throat, then turned his head to the side enough to grin up at her, his eyes crinkling with amusement.

“Mm. Well, I _have_ studied human physiology very, very closely, Major. I probably know more about how your body works than you do.”

Before she could form a cutting response to that, both his hands were moving up her legs, skimming over the stockings covering her and up beneath her skirt. It was still partly rucked up from when she’d been riding his thigh earlier, but he lifted it higher with his wrists, hands cupping her hips now, hot and sure. Then his fingertips were sweeping higher, searching for the waistband of her pantyhose and she briefly wished that she’d broken regulation and gone bare-legged instead. Then the shift of her weapon holster against her spine reminded her.

“Wait, wait, stop,” she said, and his hands froze on her hips, his gaze flickering up to hers in question. She reached with unsteady hands to unlatch her weapon belt from under her waistband. Slid it free, checked the safety was engaged, and wrapped the belt around the holster before setting the weapon on a table within arm’s reach. “Okay, go.”

“Christ that’s hot,” he muttered hoarsely, leaning his forehead against her lower belly as he resumed tugging her hose down, taking her panties with it. She felt the damp slide of the soaked crotch against her inner thighs, her own wetness cooling on her skin. Making her shiver. Making her spread her legs more, bracing herself, gripping the back of his head, his shoulder desperately. “And ah that _scent_. And oh god, Carol, it’s _you_.”

He abandoned her hose mid-thigh and skimmed his hands back up, around, until his fingers were brushing the crease of her thighs from behind, beneath her ass, rocking her forward. The tips of his fingers paused even as she braced herself for the impact of his touch, but they just teased at the edge of her pubic hair. His head turned until he had one ear pressed to her. He was looking down, and she could hear him take a deep breath through his nose. Smelling her. Taking in the scent he’d mentioned with such desire in his voice.

She threw her head back and gasped for air, her whole body shivering, her breasts aching, her nipples hard, rubbing taut against the constriction of her bra.

He bent even lower, rooting against her, working his head down over her lower stomach, beneath her rucked-up skirt to the slick skim of her ruthlessly trimmed pubic hair. She felt the wash of his breath against her upper thigh even as his fingers shifted, skimmed in over swollen, wet flesh to find the aching crease of her and spread her wide with sure skill.

Then his tongue was on her clit, bold and hard, and she was clawing at his coat, his neck with desperate hands and crying out. Her legs spasamed, tried to close against the suddenness of it, the shock, the shivering drive, but he held her wide with ease, his fingers digging into her. Holding her open.

“Oh god, Lawson!”

His tongue flattened. Pressed over her. Softened. Stroked. Gentled. Then it withdrew to her whimper of denial only for her to feel his lips, breath puffing, moving over her, sucking lightly for a moment before the stab of his tongue again, firm and tight against her, the pressure of his fingers keeping her labia wide, exposing her, wet and hot, between the prison of her thighs.

She wanted to do nothing more, then, than spread her legs wide and press his face closer to her, into her, against her, but the nylons bunched around her thighs prevented it. Bound her. Ratcheted the tension even higher as she struggled against them.

“Get those off, damn it,” she demanded, gasping.

“But I like you like this,” he said against her, amused, the motion of his lips making her groan, thrust her hips forward harder. She dug her fingernails into his scalp. Hissed at him in frustration.

His tongue went back to work on her clit. Stroking. Pushing. Teasing it to aching hardness. Beyond. Into pulsing. Aching.  He used his fingertips too. Rubbing them along the edge of her labia, between slick flesh and hair, all of it sopping wet and silken. But not pushing inside, where she ached, clenched, throbbed for his touch. She wanted him… wanted him… he wasn’t human… an _alien_ …

She came in a rush, hot and sharp, both hands gripping his head punishingly, her hips pulsing, her body arched over his. He held her up through it, making noises of his own against her, the vibrations of it adding to the delicious shock of it.

It was the kind of orgasm that left her feeling energized and edgy afterwards instead of stated. The short, quick, too-sharp bite of it leaving her vaguely unsatisfied because she’d had nothing to clamp down on, nothing to surge against except his tongue, his chin, the tease of his fingertips.

He drew away from her slowly, breathing heavily himself, but only enough to look up and meet her heavy gaze.

He was still fully dressed as he knelt between her legs, the only real evidence of what they’d done on him the mess she’d made of his short black hair. While she was still wearing everything except her shoes, her hose and panties an awkward bunch around her knees, her skirt creased high around her waist. His green eyes gleamed up at her, seeming to glow even brighter now.

“Good?” he asked her, his voice husky. She could see the slick of her on his chin, his lips. He darted his tongue out as she watched. Licked his own lips. He smiled up at her, aware, heated.

“Oh god you’re an utter bastard,” she managed, her voice hoarse, breathless.

He looked hurt for a moment, but the smile flashed back almost at once, stronger. “Good then,” he decided smugly, then his gaze left hers to focus on his hands dragging her hose the rest of the way down her legs, – finally! – stripping them off one foot at a time before tossing them aside.

“I want you naked,” he said, glancing up at her as if he expected some kind of protest. 

“You too,” she said, making her heavy arms move, hands gripping his suit coat collar.

It became some kind of race then, both of them tugging at each other’s clothing. Getting in each other’s way. His coat came off somehow. Was flung aside. Hers too. Her tie fell open, along with the buttons of her blouse. She got the upper hand briefly when she gripped his tie, drew it up tight against his throat in an attempt to loosen it, and there was a frozen moment where he choked, his gaze flashing to hers, locking there as she held him drawn up on his knees, his hands falling still down by her ankles where he’d just dropped her skirt.

She bent down then, and, not releasing his tie, savaged his mouth with hers.

“You’re a kinky bastard too aren’t you?” she accused against his lips finally as she kicked her skirt away, freeing her legs to spread wider.

“Oh a little sub play is so vanilla,” he muttered, eyes glazed, mouth wry, open as he panted for breath against her. “Of course I’m the biggest pervert who ever lived; I have sex with mammals.”

She laughed despite herself, a surprising sense of gleeful freedom rising within her as she straightened up again. Yeah, so maybe she was twisted for wanting an alien… but then she was an alien to him too. And he’d changed himself to be like her. Not the other way around. And he wanted her just as badly as she wanted him. A rush of power swept through her. He wanted her. Just like this.

He reached back and flipped his own shoes off while she held the tie taut, stared down into his face. Didn’t relax the hold as he wormed his socks off too. He paused, knees spread around her feet, hands lax on his own thighs as, for once, he seemed ready to wait for a cue from her.

She tried then, to remember the pictures of Kree, of _him_ , to find echoes of his real form in his too handsome human face as she stared down at him now. _The hollow, sunken eye pits holding glossy, pupil-less luminously pale eyes._ His green eyes met her gaze steadily, the skin around them smooth, warm, dark lashes sinking over them as the lids grew heavy with desire. _The lipless mouth._ But his mouth right now was blurred, full, lips swollen from hers. _The too-long, too-sharp, too-many teeth._ Flat, even white teeth were just visible behind parted lips as he panted for breath. _No tongue._   His darted out, pink and quick. Smoothed over his upper lip. Disappeared as he swallowed, throat working against the knot of his tie. Her hand flexed below it as she remembered the feel of his tongue against her, firm and sure. Shivered once. How was it possible he was so fundamentally changed from what she’d seen? How was he so _human_?

The green-white watch face imbedded in his left wrist gleamed faintly in the dim light from just under the cuff of his shirt.

It was his choice to be human. He’d defected. Turned on his own people forever. Helped defend human interests against their attack. Destroyed the only ship capable of returning him home. Then helped humanity stand up and drive off the galaxy’s great exterminator – Gah Lak Tus – helped them survive against all odds and his own people’s plan.

His choice. To be here. Now. With her.

And she’d fight to keep him there, she realized. _Fight to the death._

“What do you need, Carol Danvers?” he asked softly when the moment had stretched too long and she realized she was taking deep, nearly sobbing breaths as she stared down at him.

“I need you inside me,” she said, barely aware of the words, her gaze fixed on his. Watched his green, glowing eyes flare with a heat that was all human, all male, all desire.

“I will be inside you,” he promised.

“Take your clothes off,” she said, her hand not slackening its grip on his tie. “Get them off now.”

His hands went to his wrists first, undoing cufflinks, letting the fancy cuffs fall loose before he shifted them to his belt next. Slid the leather open with quick competency, leaving it in the loops to tear at the slides and hooks of his expensive suit pants beneath. He spread the fly wide to reveal a pair of standard white briefs beneath his shirt tails, dampened and stretched taut over an angled erection.

She gave a slight jerk on the tie, drawing his gaze up to hers.

“Shirt first,” she ordered hoarsely, gaze greedily following another swipe of his tongue across his lips.

“Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, lips curved. His hands rose obediently to his collar, tangling his fingers briefly with hers beneath the knot of his tie, not denying her hold but tugging on it just enough to loosen it so he could undo the first collar button beneath it, fingers moving swiftly down the row of them until his pale green shirt gaped open over the light dusting of black hair on his chest. Of course he didn’t bother with an undershirt. And oh _god_ that chest…

“Oh god, all the _details_ ,” she said, staring at the tan circles of his nipples, center pebbled and firm, the ripple of  chest and abdominal muscle as he shifted, the pattern of chest hair and the distinct line of it thickening where it neared his beltline. His bellybutton quivered, jerked in with his taut stomach as he tugged shirt tails free of his pants all the way around, pulled the collar under the tie still around his neck. “For a disguise, you got everything amazingly right.”

“Because, Carol, like this I’m virtually human,” he said, watching her closely, hands pausing with the shirt halfway down around his back.

“No you aren’t,” she said, swallowing hard, gaze devouring him. “And I don’t care.”

“Oh I am,” he said, shaking the shirt off his arms and letting it drop to the floor, “genetically 98% human.”

“That’s closer than gorillas, Lawson, but not 100%,” she murmured.  She’d listened to more than enough frustrated biologist ranting from Susan Storm to know it. Sue was still hoping for a full physical exam without the suit, and diagnostic scans, stress-tests, fluid samples and maybe a biopsy; Carol stared down at his spread legs, at the bulge of his erection visible through his opened pants, at the long, clean, impossibly perfect lines of his body and a dark, greedy part of her didn’t want the other woman anywhere near him ever again. For research purposes or not.  

“Just far enough to still make this really kinky,” he agreed, looking at her sidelong. Then he added something in the Kree throat-click language, his mouth barely moving but his throat vibrating against the curl of her hand,  and she couldn’t stop the startled jerk on the tie that tilted his head back, forced his eyes to nearly close, his lips to part on a startled grunt.

“What did you say?”

“Damn, my accent sucks now. And it doesn’t really translate well,” he murmured with a small smile. She felt the familiar chill of irritation intrude on the heat filling her.  

“Try.”

His eyes slid slowly open, the glow of them surprising her all over again, and he held her gaze. “Not now, maybe later.”

She glared down at him, her knuckles rolling tighter against his jugular. “One of these days I’m going to shoot you in the head I swear.”

He put a hand on her calf. “Get in line,” he said, the rueful smile on his mouth not distracting from the flush on his cheeks, the flicker of his lids. He put the other hand on her too and skimmed it up as he rose to his knees, shifting close again.  She let the tie go. Brought her other hand in to jerk the knot free, to strip it off and toss it away and slide her hands around his neck, one driving up into his hair to cup the back of his head and urge him on. 

His mouth pressed to her belly, just above the line of her pubic hair. Eyelids flickered, revealing the glow briefly, then veiling it. He concentrated then, hands skimming across her hips, thumbs bracing on her hip bones, sweeping inward across the stretch of  taut skin.  Lips and mouth and tongue. He kissed and sucked and licked his way from hip to hip.  Fingers stroking, slipping down, creeping closer to where she still throbbed and ached, where her thighs rubbed wet and slick together.

She fisted her hand in his hair sharply to stop him from bending lower. Struggled for breath and to slow her rampaging pulse. She’d had that already. She wanted to feel _him_ now.

“No.”

He chuckled against her, warm breath and soft, sleek shifting of lips. “Okay, okay. Wall.”

His hands slid down under her thighs as he shifted to brace a foot under himself, caught his balance and then, with an ease that should have been impossible, lifted her against him as he stood up in one smooth motion. Much stronger than he looked. Stronger than he should be. More proof that he wasn’t just human… but then, neither was Captain America. Though Rogers was easily twice Lawson’s size. And her brain should just shut the hell up, honestly, because she’d never had these kinds of sweaty, needy thoughts about America’s super soldier – too much the humorless, officious prick no matter how hot his body and damn when _had_ she decided she liked smart-mouthed bastards better anyway? – she thought with a groan as she wound her legs around Lawson’s hips, locked her bare ankles over the curve of his ass. Her arms clutched tight around his shoulders, her hands stroking through his hair.

He was still wearing his slacks, his underwear; she had on her bra and uniform shirt, gaping open, but still hanging from her shoulders. And all _in the way_.

“Not naked here yet, alien boy,” she pointed out, diving in to suck on his slightly swollen lower lip. Licked greedily at the corner of his mouth.

“I know, damn it,” he muttered against her cheek before turning enough to catch her mouth and drive his tongue deep into it. Slick and hot and eager.

He twisted away before she was ready, though they were both panting for breath. He was hot and hard, rubbing tight against her inner thigh. She ached. Squirmed her hips and listened to him groan, felt him shuffle for balance. And wanted him inside her. Badly – 2% alien cock or not. Angled her hips to make it easier. Rubbed on his length as he slid closer to her goal.

Then the brain-to-mouth filter she’d had to improve after leaving active duty for the far more political arena of SHIELD failed her utterly as she blurted, “Hey, you’re not going to give me space herpes or anything are you?”

His head jerked back slightly and his eyes widened for a second in shock, then he laughed, low and honest and amused. “Space herpes? Good Christ, you silly humans.” He turned them and took a step forward, grinding them together, on her still-sensitive clit, as he moved. She gasped. Tightened her grip on his shoulder, neck. Two more steps that she rode this time, biting at her lower lip and hissing the while. Then the wall was against her shoulders and he was leaning in close again, pressing her between it and his chest to say, “No, I don’t retain human viruses once I engage the suit and you’re incompatible with Kree.”

She looked into his eyes. So hot and heavy now. Glowing with need. Looking exactly the way she felt. But. Too many impossible genetic reports on the brain, too much listening to Susan Storm, and her mouth wouldn’t. Shut. Up.

“Could you get me pregnant?” His expression sobered, the glowing eyes flaring suddenly with something unknown. A kind of heat she couldn’t quite interpret but it left her heart beating faster in her chest regardless, hyper-conscious of the unfulfilled ache of her body, and the way her lips were still tingling, soft and swollen, from his mouth.

“Maybe,” he said, his voice low. Rough. “I’m not… entirely sure.”

She swallowed hard then, a hint of cold alarm stirring under the heat of desire. There was no way to know what kind of species-procreation hang up she might have stumbled into all unwary here. Unless she asked. But right now, here, she really didn’t want to think about it any deeper.

“Can’t. I have an implant,” she said, deflecting, reaching down and lifting one of his hands inside the loosened sleeve of her shirt to the spot on the inner part of her upper arm. It was even a new one. From just last month during a SHIELD physical. He fingered the small lump gently, and she let her hand stroke over his.

“That’s probably good,” he said after a heartbeat or three of taut silence, his voice husky as he stared at the spot. Then he lifted his eyes and caught her gaze, still tense. “I’ve got a couple condoms in my jacket pocket if you need to be extra sure.”

She couldn’t stifle a laugh. Or the sudden urgent need to make that strange look leave his eyes. “You brought… of course you did… oh god, you’ve been hanging around Stark way too much haven’t you?”

“Hey, hey, you can’t blame Tony,” he said, lips twisting into a grin again, and the odd moment of intensity seemed to pass without detonating over them both. He had one hand braced under her hip, while the other curved deeper beneath her shirt, along her arm, sliding it all the way off her shoulder. “I was a quick study all on my own. Why _do_ you think I defected?”

For a moment she just stared at him, outrage and amusement warring with the need still raging inside her. But she’d been around him constantly for more than a year already, during the whole span of the Gah Lak Tus event, and knew his humor, even if it probably was the truth. “Could you be any more of a B-movie cliché, Lawson? God, there are just so many levels of wrong in that I don’t even know where to start.”

His look then was unrepentant but wry. Much more familiar. And the way his free hand was working around her back to her bra clasp was promising. “You can’t tell me you’re surprised. I’ve been flirting with you hot and heavy pretty much since day one of the Asis Project.”

“Oh just shut up and kiss me,” she said, gripping his head and shifting her mouth until it barely brushed his. It had the desired effect. He shut up and kissed her, mouth moving eagerly over hers, tongues tangling.

And then it wasn’t about distracting him but taking what she wanted. Him. His nimble mouth and the sleek tongue he’d had to get used to and the clutch of his arm around her, abandoning her bra to hold her closer. She arched into him, her legs flexing around his hips, driving herself, wet and eager, against his trapped erection.

He broke way, panting hard, dropped his forehead against her shoulder and stared down between them. “Why are my pants still on?”

“Better get on that,” she murmured, amused, leaning in to breathe against his ear, just beneath it, nipping lightly at his skin. He shuddered against her, shifted her in his hold. Her shoulder blades protested the press of hard wall but she ignored them.  He tugged at his beltline, bracing one hand around her back, until she felt the slick, hard glide of his cock between her legs as it sprang free.

“Fuck it,” he said, voice low, raw, “naked next time.” Then he lifted his head, stared into her eyes as he rolled his hips deftly and found her waiting entrance. Pressure for only an instant, thick, firm, then slickness giving way to the probe of him, her folds opening easily, and then he was inside her and she was grunting, gasping along with him as he filled her, staring into those glowing green eyes as he pushed further and further, with little rocking motions of his hips, until he was seated, hard and tight, all the way inside of her.

She cried out even though she was so wet. So needy and raw. So empty and aching and swollen with longing and then – so suddenly – not. Her breath was coming hard now. In whimpers. Groans. The stretch of her body. An ache. A longing for motion. For a shifting. Thrusting. Something. Everything. But she didn’t move. Couldn’t. Held his gaze. Held it and breathed. _Breathed_. Felt as if something was being pulled out of her now. Into him. Something… something… she gasped for air… mouth open, panting desperately for breath, for the room in her lungs lost to that nameless something else. Quivered against him.

But still nothing. No motion. Nothing but eyes and breath and the quaking of her own limbs.

She could feel his balls, pulled up tight at the lowest part of her slit, pressing against her heavy and full, a taut strain. Feel his cock inside her. His eyes on hers. Holding her. Deep. So thick and hard and deep. All the way inside her. His cock flexed into her, but it was nothing he did. A little involuntary twitch that was all human male. All dick and hindbrain. _So human_. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t catch her breath. Panted harder. Her hands were useless, clutching helplessly at his bare shoulders. Doing nothing but holding on. Holding his relentless gaze.

And there was eternity and longing in those subtly alien eyes, drawing her in. There was a film over his eyes, she saw finally. A thin green glowing membrane tinting the white, brightening the green to something more. Alien. _Alien_. And oh god she wanted… she _wanted_ …

“ _Carol_ ,” he said, short, sharp, desperate. She quivered at the sound of her name said in that rich, clever voice gone raw. Gasped.

“Fuck me,” she managed. Crude and plain. An order. Or a counter. To what she wasn’t sure. She forced her eyes closed, broke away from that drowning gaze and clenched down on him. Feeling him inside from root to tip.  He groaned and broke at once. Thrust in, then out, quick and hard, driving through her slick, swollen heat.

And it was all motion then. Her. Him. His mouth rooting until it found hers again. Tongue and lips and sobbed breaths mingling. Heat. The rise of sweat, slicking them both. The bra he’d never quite removed became a tight band crushing her breasts. The sharp thump of his belt as it dropped to the floor around his ankles with his pants meant nothing but more freedom of motion. Her hands clawed over him, gripping, slipping, her hips thrusting, arching, twisting. Trying to take him even deeper on every stroke. Working her clit against the angle, the hard stroke of his shaft, until finally, finally the ache exploded.

And it was forever or all at once as she rose to the crest and then she was shuddering in his arms as she clamped down on him, ripples of heat-slick dissolution roaring through her. Melting her. Her body juddered and froze, thighs clamping tight around his hips in the first instant before breaking and rolling as she came and came and came against him in thick, heady waves that left her weak and breathless and blind behind fallen eyelids.

“Halawill,” he gasped, shaking as he thrust into her through it, driving her back against the wall, grinding into the waves, “Halawill, selffound-livebearer, Carol, Carol, oh god Jesus yes oh yes you beautiful, beautiful mammal...” Until he came in a tight, hard rush, hand yanked out from behind her to slam against the wall by her shoulder, bracing himself as his hips jerked and his body bowed over hers, muscles locked. He groaned, deep and long, and the hot flood inside of her made her impossibly slicker, wetter, fuller.

Breath came back slowly. Her head was wedged back against the wall, her eyes closed, tiny shudders rippling through her. Her knees ached and her ankles were sore, she realized eventually, the bones bruising each other where they’d crossed tight behind his back. As he panted against her shoulder she let her legs relax, shift down his hips and whimpered over the prickle of increased blood flow, a distinct distraction. It shifted him inside her and she gasped. Trembled as more little aftershocks made her clench. On him. He moaned too.

“Oh god… don’t… you okay?” he murmured into her collarbone sounding as utterly wrecked as she felt.

“Y-yeah, my feet are numb. I h-have to…” She pushed at him a little. “Can you move?” 

“Not really. Not yet anyway. Gimme a sec.” But despite his denial he pushed back from the wall with one hand at once, sliding the other down to lift her back against him. The squish of fluid – him, her, the both of them – seeping out around his cock and down her inner thigh, onto his thighs made her whimper again and lean close, her arms looped around his neck, thighs trying to tighten but feeling like rubber. It wasn’t working. She clutched at him desperately, not wanting to fall, struck with an unwelcome pang of self-consciousness. Suddenly painfully aware that they’d just rutted like animals against a wall in the middle of Tony Stark’s house party.

And she focused on that instead of the odd way she was feeling. How her throat felt tight and raw like after crying as he started to slip out of her body. All because of the way he’d looked at her when he filled her. As if it were necessary. And after too. Or the way she hadn’t been able to look away either. And why, why…

“Oh good, couch,” he muttered, looking over his shoulder at the room. She looked too. At low, wide, plush-looking suede couches that were probably worth more than her car.

“Floor,” she said, sentences failing her suddenly, shaking her head a little, stomach muscles trembling with the effort of holding herself up. “Messy.”

“Couch,” he countered, hitching her up against him, trying to keep his softening self inside of her too and mostly succeeding. Enough to make her hiss and clench to try to keep him there, against her, even knowing it was useless. The slow slide out was inevitable. “Tony doesn’t give a shit about messed up furniture.”

“Well I do,” she muttered, mostly because it meant _evidence_ , not that there was much point about worrying about that now was there, and oh god he was moving. She hissed. Caught her lower lip beneath her teeth as he shifted away from the wall, ready to turn, and the sudden jangle of his belt buckle on the floor reminded both of them that his pants were still around his feet. He swayed briefly in place, slapped a hand back against the wall, clutched her tighter with the other and laughed. “Oh that’s not good. Stuck.”

He looked so disgruntled as he stared down at the tangle around his feet; _alien space hero foiled by gabardine slacks!_ She tried not to laugh – knew what the results would be – but snickering and fighting it was the same as doing. He slipped out of her, far too soft now, and her amusement turned into a whimper of loss, followed by a gasp for the immediate gush of slick out of her.

Still feeling vaguely shamed for dripping come all over what was probably a very expensive carpet but resigned to it now, Carol let her legs fall from his hips, staggered as numb toes hit the floor, and then bit her lip to keep another gasp back for the sheer wetness between her legs.

His hands were instantly on her waist, steadying her. “What?”

“So much,” she said, staring down, snickering a little again. Feeling dazed. Daunted. Damn, it had been a while but she was making it up in spades tonight. “Oh damn, and it’s everywhere.” She laughed, shook her head at the mess, gripping his arms hard to keep her balance. And then, in a rush, she was up in his arms, bridal-style, his mouth quirked into a distinctly smug smile as he kicked his pants away without any problem at all before he brought them both over to the closest couch. And there was in no way a little thrill in her gut for how easily he lifted her either. No way she was admitting it anyway. Good lord the man’s abs were amazing.

“So much for afterglow, huh?” he said, shaking his head at her as he lowered her to the couch, following her down. But he was smiling, his eyes dancing at her. And oh god where did Stark get his furniture? This thing was huge. Soft as butter. Warm against her back. And there was plenty of room on it for him to drape himself beside her without having to brace a leg on the floor too. The knee that nudged its way between her slippery thighs was purely for effect, she was sure.

“Hard to get afterglow screwing against a wall,” she said, lips twisting in a smile that vanished under the pressure of his mouth.

The kiss was long and slow and left her feeling languid and warm and not at all like laughing any more. More like purring. The fingers of one of his hands were carding through the hair by her temple. The feel of them moving against her scalp was soothing. Her own hands were stroking down his back, his side, exploring him more slowly now. Feeling each shift of muscle. The sleek warmth of his skin.

“I don’t know about that,” he murmured against her cheek. “I’m feeling some kind of glow here.” His nose rubbed against hers and beneath his lashes she could see that his eyes were still glowing, a membrane visible over the whole of his eye.

She stared into his eyes curiously. Realized something. Something that suddenly made him seem even less alien – which was ironic. “Are contact lenses part of your suit?” she asked, licking her lips, and he stared at her mouth.

“What?”

“On your eyes. Lenses. That’s what’s glowing. Not your eyes.”

“Uh, yeah.” He frowned a moment. Blinked a few times. But the lenses didn’t shift. “Huh. Why are those deployed?” He drew back a little to let his gaze drift down over her until it hung up on her chest, his slight frown fading into something far more focused. “You look amazing anyway. More importantly… did you know that the only scrap of clothing left on either of us is your bra?”

She made a low sound of amusement and nodded, watching the way his mouth moved as he spoke. The flicker of tongue behind even white teeth. _Tongue._ For not being used to one, he was damn good with it. So good she wanted it again. On her. In her. She flexed her hands up along his back and into his hair again, drawing him down toward her.

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to mention that, alien boy…”

\--fin--

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Love’s a Trainwreck, You’re a Mistake](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12387441) by [oliviathecf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oliviathecf/pseuds/oliviathecf)




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